KEITH OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York. This is Wednesday, December 21st, 321 days until the 2012 presidential election, 10 days until the payroll tax extension expires. And Speaker Boehner now working feverishly to control — not the debate — but your access to seeing that debate, even as members of his own party condemn him and declare a Republican defeat.
In our fifth story tonight — President Obama calling Boehner to tell him to pass the Senate's bill. Boehner responding by calling a completely gratuitous news conference, then turning off the cameras inside the House chamber just as the Democrats call for a vote.
In a statement today, White House saying President Obama called Boehner and "urged the Speaker to take up the bipartisan compromise passed in the Senate." According to reports, he also told Boehner "not to waste the next ten days simply because it's an inconvenient time of year."
The President then calling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and, according to the White House statement, "Again applauded him for the work he conducted with Minority Leader McConnell to achieve a successful bipartisan compromise that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate."
White House Press Secretary Carney today continuing to push that message, praising the Senate bill and blaming Boehner for the hold up.
(Excerpt from video clip) JAY CARNEY: The compromise exists. It is embodied in the Senate bill that was supported by 90 percent of the United States Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike. It is available, even now, for the House to vote on. There is a stalemate in that the Speaker will not act.
OLBERMANN: Boehner deciding today, instead, to grandstand. Calling a news conference with his eight House Republican negotiators sitting across from eight empty chairs.
(Excerpt from video clip) JOHN BOEHNER: We're here, we're ready to go to work, and we're hoping that Senate Democrats will appoint negotiators, come to the table and resolve these differences.
OLBERMANN: Majority Leader Cantor, for once on the mark here.
(Excerpt from video clip) ERIC CANTOR: People are sitting there across America scratching their heads, wondering what Washington is doing.
OLBERMANN: You got that right, sonny. Adding to the confusion, two senior House Democrats showed up at a pro forma session, normally the setting for mundane procedural business, to ask for a vote on the Senate's bill. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer making his case, as the GOP freshman Michael Fitzpatrick, serving as presiding officer, tried to slam the gavel to end the session.
(Excerpt from video clip) STENY HOYER: Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we would like to ask for unanimous consent that we bring up the bill to extend the tax cut for 160 million Americans as you walk off the floor, Mr. Speaker. You're walking out. You're walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers, the unemployed —
OLBERMANN: Even after the officer left, Hoyer continuing, introducing Congressman Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat of Maryland.
(Excerpt from video clip) CANTOR: I am pleased to yield to my friend, Mr. Van Hollen.
OLBERMANN: But as soon as Congressman Van Hollen took the floor, the mic cut out, then the cameras do as well and the shot switches to the Capitol.
Hoyer and Van Hollen reportedly continued for 23 minutes — none of their comments on the record. C-SPAN responding to criticism that it cut them short, by tweeting that, "C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras, the Speaker of the House does."
That's right, that's John Boehner. You may have forgotten that since he never seems to do his goddamned job.
A desperate move from a desperate politician, now under fire from members of his own party.
One Senate GOP leadership aide anonymously telling CNN, "The House Republicans have painted themselves into a corner. They are on their own. This is a lose-lose situation for us. They've let the Democrats get the messaging advantage. The Republicans look like they are the ones blocking tax relief."
And a second aide saying, "The House Republicans pulled defeat from the jaws of victory."
Even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board with harsh words for House GOP leaders, writing, "The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter. This should be impossible."
Republican uber-strategist Karl Rove, today saying he agrees with that assessment, adding that the Republicans should now wait until the president leaves for the holiday, then blame him once he's gone.
(Excerpt from video clip) KARL ROVE: They've lost the optics on it. And the only way to win it is to stick there and ruin their own Christmases and wait till the president heads off to Hawaii for his, and then lambast the Democrats for having abdicated their responsibilities to pass a year-long tax cut.
OLBERMANN: Meantime, the White House taking to social media to advance its message, asking the Twitterverse to share how the expiration of the tax cut could affect their family budgets. Using the hashtag "40 dollars" — being the average amount per paycheck families will lose if the tax expires — the White House calling on people to tweet what they would do with that money.
The hashtag trending worldwide today, the White House estimating it reached an audience of over 3 million people.
Joining me now from Washington, Brian Beutler, senior congressional reporter for Talking Points Memo. Brian, thanks for your time tonight.
BRIAN BEUTLER: Thanks, Keith.
OLBERMANN: All right, the Republican Senate aides to the House GOP, "This is a lose-lose situation for us. . . they've let the Democrats get the messaging advantage . . . Republicans look like they're the ones blocking tax relief . . . the House Republicans pulled defeat from the jaws of victory." Possibly the strongest intra-critical words from any one party towards other members of that same party of the year, but do they have any practical impact on what's going to happen here?
BEUTLER: It could. I mean the Senate — by and large, the Senate Republican caucus has less to lose as a result of this skirmish and this now-stalemate over the payroll-tax cut than House Republicans do. But the whole party is losing. They are losing a message. They are losing a policy fight.
And on top of that, the Senate Republican aides who are talking to reporters about this — and Senate Republicans themselves, who are, you know, up this cycle for re-election, who put themselves out on the line — in addition to wanting to try to bail their whole party out, they feel like they basically tossed a lifeline to House Republicans this weekend and those House Republicans, for a variety of reasons, just kind of shoved it away.
And now, you know, the, sort of — the results are evident. Mitch McConnell is a very, very shrewd tactician and they wouldn't have done this if they didn't think it was, like, a good way out of this payroll-tax problem for everybody.
OLBERMANN: Uh-huh.
BEUTLER: And now, the results are evident and they are peeved.
OLBERMANN: Well, Rove's comments, that the GOP should wait until things quiet down, pass the compromise, make a lot of noise — that they have already taken the hit and the best they can do is pretend there isn't much of one, is that actually what's going to happen now?
BEUTLER: You know, there is — I am trying to get a sense, you know, from people on the Hill about just, sort of, what options they are considering to sort of, you know, lose gracefully. They are not saying much.
But my sense is that there is a whole lot of ideas being bandied about — how do we get out of this? How do we put this issue to bed? And Karl Rove and other, you know, party strategists and members of Congress are batting around ideas. This is one of them.
The others that have been, sort of, batted about are that House Republicans say, "Okay, we will pass this, but with," you know, "an iron-clad promise from Harry Reid that he will appoint negotiators."
Other people want to get preemptive concessions from Harry Reid if they pass this, that Reid will stipulate there will be no tax increases as part of the negotiations on a full-year payroll-tax cut.
So, they are — they are trying to figure out how to get out of this. But there's — I haven't talked to a Republican on the Hill, or a Republican aide on the Hill, all week who thinks there is a path to victory for them in this political fight.
OLBERMANN: How did they get so far off their path and into the mire here? I mean, when even Rove and Senate Republicans notice — I mean, it's one thing if Democrats or reporters or commentators notice that this didn't seem to have a win element to it — but when Rove and these aides start talking about it, I mean, it's a bad situation. And it certainly, you know, reeks of bad — certainly, bad game planning. How did they get this far down that path?
BEUTLER: It's sort of a long, complicated story. It's not the result of any sort of grand strategizing by the Democratic Party. They didn't lure anybody into a trap. You know, as much as they might like to take credit for, you know, landing the House Republicans in this spot, that's not what happened.
The House — you know, a lot of House Republicans never really wanted the payroll-tax cut to begin with. Others kind of knew it was inevitable, but they figured "as long as we pretend we are not that hot on it, we can extract concessions from Democrats."
And yet more — when they knew that the big option on the table was this temporary, two-month extension — didn't want to have this fight all over again during the middle of primary season when President Obama was out on the road, when there was yet, you know, probably a greater chance, even, for intra-party skirmishing about it. They were scared of the whole notion of both giving Obama a victory on the payroll-tax cut of any kind and, particularly, of giving him a two-month victory where he could start hitting them, you know, over the head about trying to protect the rich all over again, when people are paying attention, when it's not the holiday season any more.
And so they, you know, they didn't give it much thought beyond just, "Well, let's deny him that." And the ramifications didn't really become clear, I don't think, until after they took the vote, and then there was sort of a "where do we go from here" moment? And there were no good answers to that question.
OLBERMANN: Boehner and his little group of merry men, who still seem to be — at least — plastering the smiles on their faces as they did in the press conference today, they have another one of these news conferences tomorrow at 10 in the morning. What on earth are they going to say during that?
BEUTLER: That's a good — it's Groundhog Day, I think, on Capitol Hill tomorrow.
You know, my sense from the Hill is that, you know, like I said, there is nobody saying, "We are going to win this. We have a way out. We just need some more time."
There is no grand strategy here, but I think, just as far as saving face, the people who kind of landed the House Republicans in this predicament don't want to see — and I don't think that the leadership necessarily wants to do this to them — a quick, immediate, embarrassing cave.
They want to pretend like they gave it their all, they made their case, be able to say — going out to the months and weeks ahead — that, you know, the Democrats kind of left them in the lurch and abdicated their responsibility.
And if they give it, you know, if they give it a few days, or a week, of having these kabuki press conferences and Capitol Hill theatrics about "Where are the Democrats? Why is half this table empty," etcetera, that they walk away feeling, like, that they didn't completely lose, that they extracted some political price from Democrats for not coming back to negotiate.
So, I don't think that you are going to — I don't think that you are going to see any major development, and I would wager that the real development will come when these press events that they schedule hours in advance stop happening.
OLBERMANN: Yes. And what happens — I mean, sort of the — off the playing field, to the next person who says, "You know, we need to really satisfy the tea party," after the results here, because there is nothing in Washington that is more cleanly provable then that that the person or the people who thought something up are blamed for it when it's badly executed.
BEUTLER: And, I mean, one of the reasons that John Boehner is unhappy about the fact he is going to lose on this is that — if he had gotten a full-year extension, that would be it for big business on Capitol Hill, big legislative business on Capitol Hill, for the rest of the year. And that means no having to reckon with his — with the tea party faction within his caucus.
If this two month-extension happens, we have to do this all over again between now and the end of February, and that doesn't please John Boehner and it doesn't please the tea party. I guess the good news for them is that there is not a whole lot of business on the legislative calendar for 2012.
But, you know, from the moment House Republicans won in 2010, it was pretty clear the dynamics of, you know, the new caucus were such that there was going to be big tensions, big divisions within the party. And that those were going to manifest in big fights and that John Boehner's job was going to have to be to steer this, sort of, chaotic caucus towards something that, you know, that looked like unity, that looked like common purpose. And that that was going to be a difficult challenge and that it might well fall apart.
Now, it's falling apart, and I think the big question is how he manages to do this all over again in two months and then beyond that. Whether, you know, those members whom he has been able corral, sort of, over the last several months, if they will listen to him this time or if they'll listen to him when he says, "I want to be your speaker again," in 2013.
OLBERMANN: An excellent point. The senior congressional reporter for Talking Points Memo, Brian Beutler. As always, Brian, thanks for your time.
BEUTLER: Thank you, Keith.
